64 ."'t . /i. . 'Ii ,i , f p.t .. . '" , . . " . -j.'; :. #H. >. r ' ' . . ( ,"",. %"", < .' ." . J '. '. . .x. ': .: >..:. ... z . _.' ..' '.>: . ;"f< .,, v ',.".. , n.; . > . " . <-"<- ' '. " " / . . <- !,;.?fF y .: ; <- > . <- ,>> ,.p < . "'" ': "->. "" " . . 0'" ì .' * 0"" ::" Y' . Our free book of tours to India will free you from another ordinary trip to another ordinary place The India Book is a gift to you from Ai r -I nd ia. It's fi lied with extraord i nary tours of an extraordinary land. The tours in The India Book are as different as India is. Whatever the duration of your stay, price range or special interest, there's d special tour for you in The India Book. You can be there th is year. Send for The India Book. Wander through.di. ":' . &;.... the beautifu I .L; full-color photos. Then see your travel agent to help you with your arrangements r---------------, I .. I I 666 Fifth Ave., N.Y., N.Y. 10019 I I Yes! I d love a NY-429 I I free copy of The India Book I I I I Name I I I I Addre I I I I City I I State, Zip I L_______________J We work all day to make your night with us a dream. ."/I style, somewhat synthetic and senti- mental, and quite entertaining. Con- sidered as a play, it doesn't amount to much, but considered as a dramatic exercise-what used to be called a ve- hicle (in this case, for two actors, who play beautifully together under Mar- shall W. Mason's direction )-it makes for quite an evening. The actors are Edward J. Moore and Conchata Fer- rell, and Mr Irwin has provided them with rich, detailed parts, along with stretches of fakery. Time after time, I was snapped out of the play by what seemed to me to be just acting-class stuff, and then snapped right back into it again by a funny line or a shrewd bit of characterization or a moment of plausible feeling. The Sea Horse of "The Sea Hor<;e" is a waterfront bar on the West Coast which is owned and operated by a tough, burly, very fat, and very pretty young woman named Gertrude Blum. For quite a while, she has been sleeping with d sea- man named Harry Bales whenever he is in port and, one gathers, with any number of other men when he is not. The entire action of the play, which takes place during a single evening and the following morning, is concerned with Harr)'s attempts to break through Gertrude's defenses, which takes a lot of doing, and to conVInce her that he loves her and wants to marry and take care of her-of her whose greatest pride is her ability to take care of her- self. She loves him, too, whether she will admit it or not, but her guard IS al- ways up, and she rebuffs him angrily whenever he becomes serious. One way to get to her is through humor; he can always break her up. Mr. Moore's comedy and clowning are delightful, and the gleeful rapture on Miss F er- rell's face when he sings a song, "DIrty Gertie," that the sailors have wrItten about her gives great pleasure. But the <;tory of battered Gertrude's life, once she gets around to telhng it-of her miserable childhood and her dreadful marriage-sounds pat and secondhand, and the imitations of ship' machinery which Harry keeps doing are just .1-5 tiresome as Gertrude finds them. All that matters, though, are those portions of dialogue and action which do ring true. Mr. Irwin certainly seems to be- long in the theatre. David Potts's set- ting is entirely in keeping. T HE weather is turning halmy, and the Roundabout (Off Off Broad- way) has opened what I can onl) de- scribe as a quite respectable summer- stock kind of productIon of Somerset Maugham's "The Circle." One thing to be said for the Roundabout, whether the performance is pretty good or ter- rible, is that it does revive plays you al- ways wanted to see. This time, the per- formdnce ranges from so-so to pretty good, and the play, which was first produced in 1921, is still strong. "The Circle" is a drawing-room comedy about the return to her drawing room in England of Lady Catherine Cham- pion-Cheney and her lover, Lord Por- teous, with whom she ran off to Italy thirty years before, deserting her hus- band and small son. The son is now an M.P. and an exceptionally stuffy one, and the husband has been doing quite we!] chasing young girls. How- ever, the son's wife, still in her twen- ties, has fallen in love with another young man and plans to run off with hÜn, and it is she who has invited Lady Catherine and Lord Porteous-they hdve always seemed extremely roman- tic figures to her. But Lady Catherine has become a raddled, elderly woman, with brightly dyed hair and wearing garish clothes, and Lord Porteous keeps complaining about the fit of his false teeth and snaps everyone's head off at the brIdge tahle. When the son is told of his wife's plans, he and his father concoct varIOUS stratagems to block the elopement, even enlisting the aid of the returned lovers, and the play becomes a contest between head and heart-a satisfying contest of wit and truthful- ness. "The Circle" is Maughaln at his best and, I should think, an enduring theatrical work. A senSe of period is Inaintained throughout the produc- tion-we are very much in the twen- ties-and of all the actors I most en- joyed Christopher Hewett as Lord Porteous, whose shrewd, canny eyes become as eloquent as any of 1\1r. Maugham's words, and Brian McKeon as the wife's young lover. The agree- able setting and costumes are by Holmes Easley and Charles Gelatte, respectively. T HE Roya] Shakespeare COlnpany IS back at the Brooklyn Academy with a revival of "The Hollow Crown" (and with another program, "Pleasure and Repentance," which I haven't seen yet), and will he there through April 28th. The show is composed of pas- sages from lette rs, journals, official and unofficial documents, literature, and firsthand reports, along with traditional songs, all of them pertaining to the kings and queens of England 'The selections were made by John Barton, and they couldn't be better; the dIrec- tor is Patrick Tucker; the five players who read, recite, and sing them couldn't